The first three games of the season fit every stereotype that has hounded Jermaine O’Neal over the past two seasons. O’Neal looked old, out of shape, and unable to come close to justifying the $6-million-per-year contract the Celtics signed him to last season. All the good will from his impressive return from midseason knee surgery last year was gone. All the naysayers who were briefly silenced during his valiant playoff effort against the Knicks were back and loud as ever. It was awful.

The first three games of the season fit every stereotype that has hounded Jermaine O’Neal over the past two seasons.

O’Neal looked old, out of shape, and unable to come close to justifying the $6-million-per-year contract the Celtics signed him to last season. All the good will from his impressive return from midseason knee surgery last year was gone. All the naysayers who were briefly silenced during his valiant playoff effort against the Knicks were back and loud as ever.

It was awful.

Through three games, O’Neal had all of eight points, had hit just 3-of-12 shots and committed 13 fouls. Celtics coach Doc Rivers said before tonight's gameagainst the Pistons that he’d seen "flashes" from O’Neal in the first two games before admitting he saw nothing from him in the blowout loss to New Orleans.

The worst part of O’Neal’s start was that he was not the luxury he was at the start of last season when he figured to mix with Kendrick Perkins and Shaquille O’Neal for minutes in the middle. The Celtics were counting on O’Neal to be healthy and contribute this season, and while he’d shown he was the former, he had given no indication he was ready to do the latter.

Until tonight, that is.

O’Neal had as many made baskets in the first five minutes of the game as he’d had in the first three games combined in scoring six points during a nine-minute first-quarter stint, on his way to a 19-point, seven-rebound effort that was a sight for the eyes sorest from watching him lumber through an 0-3 start with the Celtics before tonight’s 96-85 victory.

"Jermaine was super tonight," Kevin Garnett said of his frontcourt mate. "He had a lot of energy. He was active. The things he was able to do for us tonight was tremendous on both ends. He controlled the defensive end, went toe to toe to control the paint. Offensively, he was aggressive."

While O’Neal has shown virtually no offensive inclination since his disastrous performance against the Celtics as a member of the Miami Heat in the 2009 playoffs, tonight he discovered the secret that made even the offensively challenged Perkins effective as a member of this lineup.

"He made shots, but the offensive part, to me, came from him doing his job," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "Really, I told him that. I thought he was really focused on setting picks and rebounding and doing all the little things. You know, it’s funny, we just talked about this as a group and I said ‘Guys who do that, it’s amazing how you get rewarded somehow.’

"And that’s what happened, to me. He kept setting picks on Ray (Allen) – and listen, JO’s no dummy. If you set a pick on Ray everyone’s jumping to Ray and he kept slipping it. He sought it early in the game. And that’s brilliant, though. He did his job by getting Ray open and he benefitted from it. And we benefitted from it."

Despite his offensive reawakening, O’Neal knows his biggest contributions to this team will come from blocking shots, taking charges and grabbing rebounds, which he articulated to the media during more than 10 minutes of interviews following the game.

Though he ultimately picked up five fouls tonight, he went through the first quarter without any, which allowed him to stay in the game and find his groove.

"Playing extended minutes - when you can get a rhythm - you can get a flow and you can get comfortable with what the team is doing," he said. "If you look at the first couple of games, I was in and out so fast that it was almost impossible to get any flow to the game. More than anything, just concentrating on your tasks, setting screens, moving to the basket, and getting to the open spot. This team is about a team, it’s about finding the open guy and helping the next guy."

That – as much as anything tonight other than Paul Pierce’s return from a bruised right heel – helped the Celtics to their first victory of the season.

"He was huge," Ray Allen said. "He showed his length, his presence, he rotated over, he made guys miss around the basket. Even if he wasn’t in position, he gradually saw them coming and he gave us great position deep in the paint, and he made his shots. He played a great game for us."

(Scott Souza covers the Celtics for the MetroWest Daily News. He can be reached at 781-398-8006 or ssouza@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@scott_souza.)

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